


Crossfire

by starksorcerer



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 10:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksorcerer/pseuds/starksorcerer
Summary: Harvey ends up in the hospital. Jim, as always, blames himself for what happened.





	Crossfire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Motel-hario](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Motel-hario).



> Well, here you've got your gift, Motel-Hario! Hope you like it. I know it's not the best thing around here but I did my best 'cause you deserve it. If you notice something strange please excuse me, I'm a native Spanish speaker and my English isn't very good. In fact, WroteTheWayOut here on AO3 helped me with the translation. If you understand Spanish I can send you the original one.

“You’re going to get us killed, Jim”

That said, he couldn’t leave him alone, accompanying him in one of his most suicidal adventures to the date. And is that Bullock never leave his partner to his fate. At first, when they presented each other, he didn’t want to have any dealings with him; time put everyone in their place for good and for bad. He felt obliged to defend the other from the city, the darkness that it contained and what his personal crusade brought him in his battered head. Because, whether he wanted to or not, he knew how much damage Gordon had accumulated over the years on the arduous path of righteousness. Only to him it occurred to deal with challenges that surpassed the capacity of the average human. Sometimes his way of proceeding brought with it the biggest headache one can dream of.

Things used to turn out well at the end. That time, however, a bullet got in their way.

Harvey survived until the medical services arrived, but he was about to decorate a tombstone in the municipal cemetery with his name. It was then that Gordon broke down, succumbing to recurrent negative thoughts, recriminating glances from other officers of the police station and what he thought about himself. Explosive cocktail, without a doubt. The only regret was not having interposed between the bullet and its objective. Staining his hands with the blood belonging to his own wound was far from resembling the agony of doing it with Harvey's blood.

The first hours in the hospital were hard, an accumulation of emotions that tended to clash by their own nature. He still didn’t know the diagnosis. Would he live? Would Harvey leave him alone in a contradictory and hostile world? The difference was whether he should invite him a beer or take one in his memory.

For once Gordon wish he had kept calm, acted with caution and not dragged the person he loved the most in his fall. But lady luck is capricious, and sooner rather than later she stopped smiling at him.

He huffed, nervous. Sweat-soaked shirt in December. His mind returned to the moment of the assault again and again. It affected what he could do to avoid disaster. Multiple scenarios were happening in his head like a vivid nightmare, each one more bloody than the last. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to repair the damage in that way, which didn’t mean that his mind -full of doubt, his worst enemy- was going to let him rest properly.

James didn’t think of his own death as something bad, but as a rest. He always believed that it would be he who would die first victim of his idealism. Dark alley and two bullet holes for eyes, dignified death in no man's land.

The door opened and the police man pounced on it like a starving lion. A doctor came to meet him, announced the state of the man who had accompanied him in so many tense moments and returned to the room without exchanging another word.

Gordon leaned his back against the nearest wall, letting himself fall with relief. That wouldn’t end the guilt, monster that surrounded him with each inhalation, but it gave him something to cling to. A small lifeguard in the immense sea of self-pity. If Bullock survived the following hours, his chances of recovery would increase. Maybe it wasn’t all lost. Maybe.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. But nothing. Sleeping wasn’t an option either; he only had to wait. James was so tired that, despite promising to rest his eyes for just a few minutes, he was sound asleep. The dream that seized him had nothing to envy to that which was related in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; heavy slab fatigue, invisible threat that attacked in the low hours.

When he woke up, he was slow to react, wondering the first seconds where he was. After the short time of rigor, he remembered what was happening and jumped up, having the misfortune to almost collide with someone. He apologized in a low voice and with several strides reached the door of the room in which Bullock was. Without real knowledge of how many hours had elapsed since the doctor's brief statement, he opened the door and, after crossing the frame, closed it. Fuck the visiting schedule, he /needed/ to see if Harvey was fine. With his heart in his fist, he approached the stretcher, holding his breath. When he didn’t notice movement, he feared the worst. Carefully, stroked Harvey's cheek. Harv opened his eyes. He didn’t separate them from Jim's.

“Who the fuck are you?” The older one whispered. The tone of his voice reverberated in Gordon. He let the air out of his lungs, scared by the answer. He thought he would fall. The trembling legs didn’t help to rule out that possibility, poles torn off by the force of the wind.

His heart leaped when he heard a laugh coming from the lips of the policeman who refused to die, to be part of the countless number of victims of the circumstances, several thieves and megalomaniacal villains with an unconditional love for mounting public spectacles. Oh, how he hated them.

Harvey continued laughing for an eternal time to his eyes. He didn’t like it, but complaining about the little joke didn’t make sense: he owed it to him. Shocked by the last-minute revelation, he kissed the other man gently, fearing to break it. It was real, not a product of his imagination.

The door opened and a staff member ignored Gordon, focused on his work: serving the patient's food belonging to that room and repeating the action in the next.

“Calm down, boy. It seems that it was you who is condemned to eat shit food in the hospital.” Harv teased, looking at the bowl of soup that had been served as if he were contemplating a spectral apparition. At least it seemed more appetizing than something prepared by James Gordon, who could be many things, but not a remotely good cook. The older of the two struggled to put on a good face when Jim had to cook. 

He loved him, yes, but not his food.


End file.
